For majority of the day, Canazui and I were once again left predominantly alone. The last time that I had spoken to Miriam had been several days ago, at least, and it was today, with Donat’s brief visit, that I was to discover Miriam’s last few days would not be involving Reciproka, and it was either tonight at 3am in the morning, or the following night, the she was to make for her sudden departure to her San Franciscan life. This would mean bon voyage Miriam, and maybe next time we may meet.
So, now it was left as the three musketeers, Donat, Canazui and myself. But now, as well, was the time that Donat was beginning to get busier with his full time ‘day’ job, teaching. He was a busy man when it came to this lifestyle. Where at one stage he was jumping between four different schools around the city, he, this year, had cut the locations down to (I think) three schools. With this decrease in the number of locations, he was now able to teach more classes overall, as well as devote several evenings to Reciproka. These past couple of paragraphs were a basic summation of what happened over the last several days, or thereabouts.
Today was, to no surprise, a steaming hot day. Canazui showed the weather that it could not defeat him, with his new occupation at hand to keep him busy with the outdoor world. Since the storms, people had discovered weak spots of their ‘waterproof’ roofs and were going about using bitumen backed insulation a means of sealing the pesty holes. Today Canazui was to do a little more of Reciproka’s maison and maisonette, as well as the neighbour directly across the road asking him for some assistance. The constant reference to this man was papa, as I think Canazui had a mild infatuation with his daughter. The funniest thing about this was that I don’t think he realised that he did have such thoughts.
Finishing Reciproka, we went over to papa’s, respectful, house; I met papa and mama, as well as the ‘daughter.’ Note in a previous entry how Miriam’s brother had a ‘daughter,’ basically it is a form of adoption, but in the same token this person would not be an equal to the other children and would, in fact , go about doing majority of the chores. I think I had met a half dozen, or so, homes in the same situation. This would be done in homes where a wage would be able to sustain the extra person, but not lavishly, to which I would have to commend the people doing this, and putting themselves out of the way.
Well, somehow Canazui scrambled up on the roof. The awkward operation involved a fairly chunky stick to be leaned up against the wall and Canazui would conform his feet to the available knots on the stick and compromise himself on the way up, but pulling his solid self into the roof. After finishing this task, he would prepare himself for my major contribution: Throwing up of the implements of danger. This included a bottle with altered lid, extended matches, water and something to be used in a spatula formation (actually I think it was a screwdriver). While Canazui was bounding on the roof, burning the bitumen side of the insulation, and the de-gradated portions of the roof, I would need to keep an eye out (like a dog man with cranes) and refer him to other less then satisfactory sections of the roof. The tell tale signs came from the discolourations on the wall, where running water had caused its effects.
My way of helping him was through the combined use of Moore, French and English. This caused erratic laughing from him and also bringing out the attention of the various home dwellers. I think their major curiousity was the hearing of a white boy using Moore as one of the means of communication. Overall it was both a successful and fun venture. The task done, Canazui managed to find his way down the lopsided stick and we went about talking to the relatives of the household, who had mostly gathered on the outer. This was more so they could thank us, actually Canazui, for the repairs done in the day. This opportunity arising, Canazui thought this the best time to also take care of photos. His ability to keep the hands of his steady were like trying to keep a plane steady while in the midst of a turbulent wind in the skies surrounding mountains, ocean, desert and fronts in the one region. With the mediocre photos taken, the heat finally being overwhelming for Canazui and people needing to tend to their own projects, we headed on back across the road to Reciproka and he downed a bit over a litres worth of water. We had a bit of a lunch, and the intense heat had worn him a bit thin, so we went about lazing about on benches listening to comedy and music, in Moore and French (respectively). The whole afternoon would not be just lazing around, as today was apparently the big day for me, according to Patrick.
Before Patrick’s arrival, Canazui and I were standing out the front of Reciproka, his ability of talking to any passer-by, funnily enough being of the feminine kind, was astounding. But while standing there we had the luck of attracting the attention of the direct neighbour of papa, Sylvia. Now, previous entries, awhile ago now, would have shown an introduction to this awesome lady. She was able to speak adequate English, but having a proficient speaker standing in front of her brought out butterflies, hence French being the conversing language. Anyhow, with Canazui and I having attracted her attention, she came on over and we began an hour long conversation. To let you know, she worked in one of the governmental departments as a PA and at the age of 30 seemed to be set in the career side of her life. Her over enthusiastic nature to life was one of my highlights to visiting the country, where her laugh could easily carry from her house’s closed doors to the maisonette of Reciproka with utter ease. The light hearted nature of Sylvia seemed to lift the emotion of those surrounding her.
Another thing that I had not previously mention was a large party that was had by Sylvia and her family the previous night, bass pumping, people laughing, getting mildly drunk, who would have thought that the basis of all this was a religious one? But then again, people had the anticipation of religious parties reaching such climaxes, especially with people who were praying aloud to scream out their prayer by the end of their session and those surrounding, in the premise of the ‘party’ to be either cheering, screaming, clapping or another noise making agreement. We also chatted about our families, Malaria recovery and other various time passing topics. But, alas, we had our evening commitments to tend to, au revoir Mademoiselle.
Yvonne’s and my meeting time was to be at 1830 heures, and nearing to 18oo heure I went about nicifying myself. The refreshing cold shower was able to remove the layers of grim that would cling to ones skin, after the drying of the sweat that would typically arise and dry throughout the day, and also bring about the evening life for me. The day was great at exhausting one, and preventing them from entering the ecstatic phase of their personality for the evening… groove. The buzz back in action, and dealing with the clothes to wear for the evening, Patrick appeared while I was mid-dress and gave the seal of approval for the attire selected. Unfortunately time was running thin, thus the cream on the cake, contacts, were not to be a part of me. Oh damn.
Several days ago, maybe on Tuesday, I had been visited by Miriam’s cousin, who had mentioned then that he was to take me out to the night life for the city. Unfortunately, hearing nothing at all, since, and having no time of confirmation, this was to be ignored and hope that he did not appear with expectation. This in the back of my mind, Patrick went about chauffeuring me to the mini garden near centre de ville, and until the time that we were companied with Yvonne’s presence, we sipped away at a Guinness each. Here we go all you Guinness appreciators, we all know that the taste of Guinness has variations from location to location, but the situation from the taste buds, to the liquidy effects, was relatively disappointing. An overly sweetened alcoholic drink with lack of real Guinness, renowned, body, then coming in a glass bottle resembling a tall soft drink glass bottle, really had me scratching me head. The ingredients were an interest in itself as well, where sugar’s appearance was relatively high on the list. Then again, if a successful company wants to tap the market for a variety of clients, especially where the population variation is relatively stagnant, then adjusting the ingredients to keep the look the same, but ‘perfect’ the flavour to have the society begging for more gives opportunity of keeping ones name and still have all three: Success, high price and name.
Off the topic slightly, sorry but trodding along smoothly is not typical for a warped mind typing on for such length of time (in terms of months, so to speak). The reason for mentioning about Miriam’s cousin, and the preposed plan was due our strange encounter while riding over to the gardens. At the major T-intersection, near Reciproka, Patrick and I thought we heard a whistling directed to us, but thought nothing of it, especially as Patrick was not actually from the surrounding area and I, being white and non-local, had no idea of this near zero static from occurring. Driving along at a moderate speed, I was taped on the shoulder, Patrick pulled over and he was there. I need to make reference to my blog, but his name was mentioned many times in previous entries, as the excited relative who was bloody funny and wanted to help me with finding a Burkinese wife, while I found him an Aussie wife. For a conversation that could have lasted another eternity, Patrick informed our reason for being off, and my dress, to which a heavy slap on the back was the means of being excited and constant oohing and aahing. Leaving his own way, this would be the last time I would see him, which was a damn shame, but that is life, eh? Thus our journey to the gardens again, the beer story gets inserted here, and the following paragraph goes after the beer paragraph.
Off track again slightly, but so Patrick had taken a couple of photos of Yvonne and I, spoken for a while and head that Oua was in fact not feeling the best he thought it time to tend to the situation (I think). Thus, the following three hours was spent in a rather unique, but yet not unique, situation. To let you all know, this was considered as a date for Patrick and Yvonne, I thought it would be interesting to use this as a means of exploring a different avenue of the Burkina Faso experience (not in terms of having another addition to the ‘black book’). Over the course of the evening it actually turned out into a mini language lesson: English, French and Moore. The most memoriable part of the ‘lesson’ was the learning of facial points, ie Tubre is ear, Yembre is one and about a dozen or so others.
With Yvonne having her neighbours bike and needing to return it, she went about delivering me back to Reciproka with a phone call expectation in hand, and her leaving for home.
